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This argument isn't logically consistent. Curry is the best PG of this generation... because there's no Lebron or KD playing point guard. You can't knock nephew for that and for "only being the 3rd best" at his position.
This thread is beyond stupid, TBH.
Anyone arguing that peak Kawhi is better than peak Stephen Curry needs to have their medication checked or question their understanding of NBA basketball.
Steph literally broke the NBA a few years ago and has helped (for better or worse) to fundamentally alter how the game is played.
He is the greatest PG of his (deep) era, the greatest shooter ever and is still match up nightmare even on a depleted Warriors team.
Kawhi is the third best SF of that same era. Enough said....
This argument isn't logically consistent. Curry is the best PG of this generation... because there's no Lebron or KD playing point guard. You can't knock nephew for that and for "only being the 3rd best" at his position.
terrible take
People tend to assume that since Kawhi started as a 3 and D player, he retained those skills into his TOSB KOBE stage. He wasn't a big defense guy with the raptors, He hit big shots, but that's curry's specialty while also running an offense. A godly shooting confident efficient ball handler? That's value you can build a team around. A ball dominant prima donna who once in the past was a premier bruce bowen? ok, that's something that's not as great. The raptors run was great for KL but was a pretty weak run.
again the actual kawhi is a underachieving little . The fantasy Leonard who is the strong silent type we hoped doesn't exist. It's the "i must have a separate limo" Kawhi for a long time. Some of you bought into the hype, but it's clear Kawhi stopped wanting to be the best at a point in the past and will settle into a rich man's Kobe
That obviously has no relevance to this discussion.
Um, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Kyrie Irving, Tony Parker, and a plethora of other quality PG's played at the same time as Curry.
He's also, arguably, a top 10 - 15 all time great and possibly the 2nd greatest PG ever behind Magic Johnson.
Kawhi isn't even in that discussion and nowhere near the greatest SF ever.
His slurpers that still reside here and angsty fans that still pine for his presence are the only ones that think he's better than peak Curry.
You're an idiot with no valid argument.
Did Leonard completely alter the way the game is played at his peak? Did he have one of the most dominant MVP seasons ever?
Did he have people referring to him as a "cheat code" and past legends complaining about how they "could stopped him?"
Injuries.
Several of you Curry Slurpers have attempted to invoke this.
In Game 1 of the 2015 NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors, Kyrie Irving suffered a season-ending left kneecap fracture after he collided with Klay Thompson.
That was merely to get us started. Curry has had the most injury luck vs playoff opponents in recent history.
It is. Kawhi being the much better player helps support the idea that Kawhi would have mantained the lead that Aldridge wasn't able to hold.
Again. Not that particular night.
Kawhi won a championship in 2014 as a role player surrounded by a motivated trio of hall of famers and a superior supporting cast. With Toronto he beat a Warrior team missing two of their top three stars. Was that the year we saw prime Kawhi? Or, if his prime year was the year he was ZaZa’d, then that’s an Inc. in my opinion. I’m not convinced the Spurs win that series merely based on three quarters of game 1. In some ways that injury helped cement Kawhi’s legacy because he never had to prove himself. Two and a half quarters of basketball apparently were enough in that series.
He’s a guy who has to be babied and coddled and allowed to miss a third of the regular season since his rise in status to “superstar” level. Denver, of all teams, punked Kawhi’s super team out of the gym last year: Shouldn’t “prime” Kawhi be playing right now?? Is he now past his prime? The guy’s not even 30. Two years ago people put him in the conversation with Lebron and now he doesn’t even stack up very favorably to Curry.
Kawhi has been blessed by being drafted by the Spurs and then getting that fortunate run with Toronto. He’s lacking in so many intangibles that make a good player great. Kawhi was very good, but only a fool would build their team around Kawhi at this point.
His degenerative body let him down. He could be in Blake Griffin mode within a couple of years. I honestly don’t know that there’s a prime Kawhi to compare to.
Kawhi's 2014 le shouldn't really count towards him as that was a team effort with players like TD, Manu, and Diaw all pooling their efforts to avenge the loss from the year before.
Same goes for Curry's two les with Durant. Playing next to prime KD is just cheating.
If you want to compare them, it would have to be Curry's 2015 le vs Kawhi's Raptors le.
Whatevs.
He's never been the true leader of any championship team. Even in Toronto, Kyle Lowery was the locker room and floor leader for the Raptors, and there was a long list of Spurs' leaders over Kawhi in 2014. When the mantle of "best player" was passed to Kawhi in 2015 his balls shriveled up against Matt Barnes. 2016, nope. 2017 hurt. 2018 injured vagina. 2019 Raptors. 2020 Nuggets choke. Team stats leader, sure. Team leader, never.
I guess his prime season was 2019, a year in which he missed a third of the regular season to "load manage" and his team had a better record in the games he missed than in those he played.
He may never win a championship as the best player on a team again unless he manages a super-team arrangement like Lebron had in Miami. He might be as close as he'll ever get to that in LA right now. He's got his hand-picked running mate in PG, the sixth man of the year, and center in Ibaka whose skillset rivals that of what Lebron had in Miami with Chris Bosh. Hard to be on a more stacked team than he's currently got.
Last edited by Ed Helicopter Jones; 02-17-2021 at 11:44 AM.
Don't mind RD's comment, my guy. Notice how there's no substance behind it, no rebuttal, no counter-argument. Just plain old ST baseless dismissal and contrarianism just for the sake of being contrarian. What you write on KL is spot on. I also haven't seen any of his defenders (mostly deluded Spurs homers with Stockholm syndrome over a guy who shat over the entire franchise) even talk about his ridiculously short prime/productive years. He already looks to be past his peak athletically, was a late-bloomer (especially to reach s om status), and can't even get through a single regular season without heavy load-management, the kind that any other star player would be crucified over.
Meanwhile, Curry's still tearing the league apart, at 32, even after the NBA had supposedly "caught up" to him and his style of play, averaging over 30ppg whilst bending every top-level defense he encounters, which are still tasked first and foremost to stop only him. Had Klay not gotten injured, Steph would be leading the Warriors to yet another Finals appearance, this stupid thread probably wouldn't have gotten made, and Nephew would still be trying to get to the WCF on that sorry-ass franchise with a top level bum sidekick in PG. Funny how no comments also mention his absolutely historic chokejob last season against a trying Nuggets team...
Stephen Curry is a soft stats king who has proven cannot lead without a stacked team and was not even ever the best player on most of his championship teams. I don’t like Nephew but again a team of him destroys Team Curry.
Stephen Curry is a soft stats king who has proven cannot lead without a stacked team and was not even ever the best player on most of his championship teams. I don’t like Nephew but again a team of him destroys Team Curry.
Yeah, he really is, that's why he couldn't win a ring until KD showed u- wait, what?! You mean they had already won a championship before '16?!? Nah, no way.
Btw, do tell me which teams Nephew led which weren't "stacked" as well. '14 Spurs were one of the best championship teams of all time, and '19 Toronto had a great supporting cast, as has been previously discussed. Once he gets to LA, with "only" 5 time All-NBA Paul George as his sidekick, he has a protagonist role in one of the worst choke jobs in NBA history. My, what glaring proof that he can win it all in the face of adversity!
^
You and Tricycle Jones have tried to spin what a great team Toronto had.
Check their record before and after Nephew.
And don't get me wrong, loved that Toronto supporting cast. Wish he would have stayed for the Repeat attempt.
Playoff P you lose all credibility.
I wouldn't say Toronto's was an all-time great team, or close, but it was a really good, deep team, and most importantly - was built to the strengths of Nephew and, prior to the DD-KL trade, was simply missing a main scoring, go-to guy in the clutch, who DeRozan obviously couldn't be. To the effects of the comparison, acting like it was a "weak team" that Kawhi had to carry or something (when he missed maybe the most amount of non-injury related RS games in history before a championship to sit out, and his team had a great win record without him), is asinine and disingenuous. Toronto had an excellent, top-of-the-league defense, with versatile big men in Ibaka and Gasol, great wing defense with Siakam, OG, Green, and of course Nephew, and also a great PG vet and team leader in Lowry. Do tell me how that's a bad team, or how Curry in 2015 had such a hugely better team, though..... Not to mention they only won with major injuries to GS. But that's not even relevant to the discussion.^
You and Tricycle Jones have tried to spin what a great team Toronto had.
Check their record before and after Nephew.
And don't get me wrong, loved that Toronto supporting cast. Wish he would have stayed for the Repeat attempt.
Playoff P you lose all credibility.
And do expand on the Playoff P thing, though, why'd I lose credibility?
Any way you slice it up, though, there's no credible argument for peak Nephew over peak Curry. Basketball, especially the modern NBA, weights offense above defense, and the difference between both players at this aspect of the game is so large that it's not even funny.
Actually think it’s close and the answer depends on what you’re asking.
If you’re asking who you take as your franchise player to carry you through the season, I take Steph and not think twice about it. And part of that is because I don’t believe Kawhi wants to be that guy. A guy who has to play 75+ games a season, night in and night out, and have that responsibility to be THE guy for 6 straight months, and then for a post season run.
If you’re asking who you take to carry you through a post season, I’d take Kawhi, but it’s closer than answering the first question. But I would would trust a peak, healthy Kawhi to take on the responsibility of being THE guy for a playoff run because of what he offers at both ends of the court.
In any given game, regular season or post season, who do I want with the ball in his hands to win or lose the game, I take Steph even with his less than stellar Finals performance record. He did break the NBA. He did change the way the game is played. And when he’s on, he’s still about as indefensible a player as there is in the league. And when he’s on, defenses have to over help on him more than any other player in the league, including LeBron, KD, Harden, or Giannis because the help has to start shading around halfcourt. Only Dame has a similar influence on how defenses react to one player at the end of a close game.
I do believe it’s close. And Steph is not perfect. He’s flawed just like any player. But peak Steph broke basketball. NBA Jam “en fuego” doesn’t even do him justice.
Their record before and after was among the best in the league. They obviously weren't winning a (tainted) championship without that miracle "trade" falling into their lap and the Warriors myriad injuries, but between said "trade" and the Gasol one, they had the most complete team in the league.^
You and Tricycle Jones have tried to spin what a great team Toronto had.
Check their record before and after Nephew.
And don't get me wrong, loved that Toronto supporting cast. Wish he would have stayed for the Repeat attempt.
Playoff P you lose all credibility.
They also had unmatched urgency. Veterans of good teams like Lowry, Gasol and Ibaka, knew it was their best shot and that they'd only have one with him and needed to capitalize on the breaks, like the relatively easy path.
The casual/fan boy narrative of them is off base because it occured in a non glamour market basketball wise and those types don't realize how impactful a player Lowry is (longtime top 15 impact in regular season).
You always take a two-way wing over everyone else but if you want box office and people other than your fan base filling the rest of the remaining empty seats you take Steph easily. I prefer watching Steph tbh.
No, you take a two - way big over everyone else. Neither of these guys is that & Nephew's defensive impact has stalled (or decreased) as he's become an elite scorer.
Curry literally broke the NBA & was the ONLY unanimous MVP in league history, yet a guy who never reached those heights can claim his (short) peak was better? Talk about a dumb argument and I dislike Curry but respect his game and greatness.....
The league has literally altered the rules to lessen that type of players impact, but guys like Embiid & Jokic would be perennial MVP's if the game was officiated (and rules made) evenly.
Note: I don't mean to sound attacking towards your opinion & I think we're on the same boat. Just disagree with your first sentence and used that as springboard into my bigger point.
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